


The Magic Position

by flybynight



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Fae & Fairies, Fluff, M/M, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-13
Updated: 2014-07-13
Packaged: 2018-02-08 16:49:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1948764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flybynight/pseuds/flybynight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur thought he would never see another fairy ever again-- and good riddance. At least, until he meets one who's nothing like the others. Modern AU with a bit of magic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Magic Position

Arthur Kirkland believed in magic just as surely as one believes the sun will rise and set. Which meant that it wasn't a passing fancy, or a harmless superstition or anything of that sort-- he truly believed, for he had known and been among beings of the magical persuasion during the first 16 years of his life. They greeted him every morning, posed helpful distractions and offered comfort when needed, and were the only stable presence in his life compared to his terribly broken family and shallow school acquaintances who came and went.

Thus, it was a mystery as to why one day, they ceased to appear before him. Arthur knew them well enough to call them by name, but even as he called, he stopped receiving answers. Why, he had wondered, had his cries suddenly fallen upon deaf ears? Why? Did they not care for him any longer? Was he no longer their favored child, the adorable and kind little human with the lonely heart? Perhaps he had grown too old for them to trust?

No longer comforting were the mysterious shadows on his walls at night, for they were just that-- only shadows. No longer peaceful was silence, as it only signified that he was more alone than he had ever been. And it is interesting to note that even with the abandonment that Arthur was already so familiar with, he never stopped believing, not even once.

What changed was that he hated the topic now. Loathed it, quite frankly.

Even the slightest mention of anything magical or mythical was enough to send Arthur into a tizzy, and those who already thought he was strange and alarming before were positively unnerved. He went out of his way to dismiss random flights of fancy, to scoff at every dreamer and well wisher he ever met. He had given up on people and the only beings he'd thought to call friends and family.

At 24 years of age, Arthur was a cold and hard cynic.

One day, on his way to his boring, menial job, he was at a stoplight, counting down the minutes and seconds until he would reach the office and thus spend the next eight hours crunching numbers and wondering what he was doing with his life.

It was the strangest thing when his eyes flickered from the dull red of the light to a nearby billboard with an advertisement for dental surgery. The face of a cheerful woman with far too many teeth smiled back at him with the patronizing tagline of _"Don't you want this kind of smile?"_  attached. The advertisement itself naturally held no interest for him, as first off his teeth were perfectly fine, thank you very much. Second of all, it wasn't as if Arthur had much use for smiling anyway. So none of that was what caught his attention.

Rather what  _had_  was a figure seated on top of the billboard itself. Upon further inspection, which involved Arthur squinting and shielding his eyes from the morning sun and not doing very well, he deduced that it indeed looked like a person. Naturally his first impression was that it was someone working up there, but the longer he stared, the more it became clear that this was not the case, as the figure merely sat there with its legs crossed and no ladders or lifts were around to be seen.

Arthur would have stared a little longer, had the car behind him not honked rudely, and he was forced to drive on with only the peculiar memory. It bothered him the remainder of his commute, but by the time he got to his desk, he had decided to rationalize it as a trick of the light, or perhaps part of the billboard. It simply didn't make sense, otherwise. Satisfied, though disappointed that such an instance would more than likely be the highlight of his day, he started to forget about the moment entirely.

Arthur worked his dues and left at 4:35 like he always did, spoke to no one on his way out, and climbed into his car for the drive home-- a drive that was eerily similar to the one made  _from_ home. That is, in the sense that he rarely if ever made stops, and he would count down the seconds again in his head until he reached his run down apartment complex and shut himself inside for the remainder of the evening.

He came to the same stoplight as always, the one that always seemed to change red before he could go through it, and instantly his gaze was again drawn to the billboard. It was the same one, but from behind it had nothing on it but the phone number for the agency that put up the billboard in the first place. But there was one thing it did have that was more than a little startling, and as Arthur's foot sat perched on the break, he blinked as he saw the very same figure from that morning, now facing the opposite direction.

The sun was setting, but it couldn't have been a shadow, and the fact that it had changed positions was equally confusing. And Arthur didn't know what to do when the thing-- the person, clearly--waved down at him. Him and no one else, as there were suddenly no cars behind or beside him, and no one walking on the sidewalks either. He stared, as if frozen, not sure what to do and not sure why he  _didn't_ , as the light turned green but the rest of the world seemed to slow to crawl. He didn't even have the forethought to lock his car doors as the person leaped from the billboard and landed-- on his feet, no less--upon a nearby rooftop, and then  _again_ , right onto the sidewalk. Like a child skipping a few steps in their haste to get to the bottom. Arthur continued to stare.

As the person came closer, the first thing he noticed was the fact that the young man (he certainly looked young, not too young, but definitely not much older than himself) was awfully bright. While the rest of the world blanketed itself in the light of dusk, this man remained the same, no hint of shadows about him at all. He had hair the color of spun gold and even from Arthur's position, slightly huddled in his car seat, he could see the vibrant, almost terrifyingly deep blue of his eyes. Eyes that were staring back at him and crinkled at the corners from the wide, white smile on his face that definitely surpassed the photoshopped visage on the other side of the billboard.

Arthur peered at the alarming man and his oddly old fashioned but sharply tailored brown tweed vest and slacks, his hat tipped to the side as he approached his car, and to this very day he cannot quite explain what prompted him to put his vehicle in park and roll down his window. Perhaps it was because, up until that moment, Arthur had truly forgotten that he'd seen all manner of strange and fantastic things before, not so long ago, before his worldview was shaken. From spirits to fairies, to monsters and unicorns, Arthur had met them all. And so truly, a man leaping from such great heights in the blink of an eye was, while impressive to some degree, not all that spectacular. Usually.

Or perhaps it was because the man was so handsome, he could not help but be intrigued. But that was a matter best explored later.

For now, he was simply quiet as the (handsome) man came up to rest his arm in the window and lean close enough for Arthur to literally  _smell_  the pure, unadulterated magic flowing through him. There were no wings, no sparkles, but Arthur knew what he was. It should have made him bitter, but all he could muster was something like nostalgia.

"Evenin', Arthur. On your way home, I take it?"

Somehow he also wasn't surprised the man knew his name, but he opened his mouth and stupidly asked 'how did you know', for lack of anything else to say.

The stranger chucked and tipped his hat. "I think we both know the answer to that, yeah?"

"If you insist," Arthur replied sarcastically, the air of awe and surprise melting away a bit from his features. It was like a reflex that even handsome blonde strangers could not curb so easily. But then the man only winked and gave Arthur a look that he would easily file under  _shameless_.

"Can I help you?" Arthur asked in a tone that clearly meant 'step back so I can continue on my merry way and pretend I didn't see anything before I run you over and then I'll have to have that on my conscience'. All in order to hide his anxiety.

"I need a lift, gorgeous! Do you mind?"

Arthur certainly did mind, and he also wanted to point out that a person who could leap about and cross ridiculous distances in mere moments probably didn't need a ride, especially in his little unremarkable car. He would have said as much, had his brain not stuttered at the ridiculous compliment to his person. "Gorgeous", indeed.

"Who exactly are you?" he asked, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel.

The stranger tilted his head, before letting out a musical sounding laugh that made Arthur wince, not because of how loud it was (and it was loud, seeming to shake the entire vehicle), but because it lit up the man's face even more.

"Sorry, sorry! My name's Alfred, at your service!"

"Alfred," Arthur repeated lowly, tasting it on his tongue. He'd learned the names of all the fairies he'd ever met, and none of them had been men. None them had dressed or spoken or acted like  _this_. It was interesting to say the least-- no, not interesting. Arthur didn't care anymore. He wasn't supposed to care!

"Why exactly are you here? And you didn't think to just take a taxi the whole time you were sitting up there?" he finally managed, cheeks flushing despite himself as Alfred just continued to  _grin_  at him. He scowled further to make up for lost ground.

"Why would I take an old taxi? And I'm here because I heard you were in need of a little pick-me-up. Would have just stopped by your apartment, but I really wanted to meet you right away. The girls back home told me all about you and what a cutie you were, but they didn't warn me about how nicely you would have filled out by now..."

Arthur spluttered yet again, much to his indignation. "I beg your pardon?"

"Only thing missing is that smile, though," the blonde man said, almost wistfully, as if speaking on a time long gone by, about memories that he didn't have. "They said you had a gorgeous smile. They said you were pretty when you cried, lovely when you were angry, but there was something-- dare I say it, heh--magical about your smile?"

"I think you have the wrong person," Arthur replied flatly, and attempted to force mobility back into his limbs, ready to slam on the gas, vehicular manslaughter and pesky consciences be damned.

Of course, before he could, the passenger door opened, by itself. The man must have been showing off at this point, as his grin became more cheeky before he bounded over the hood and slipped into the seat, buckling the belt with a flourish. It was so absurd and Arthur's brain still wasn't quite working up to par to say what any normal person would say in this situation. Well, perhaps any normal person would have run screaming for the authorities a long time ago. But Arthur wasn't normal. He knew that.

"So! To your place, yes? We've got  _a lot_  to discuss, and I'm sure you have lots of questions. I'm ready when you are!" the man said, seeming to glow even brighter from excitement. He seemed perfectly content, stretching his long legs out and leaning back a bit. Arthur's eyes lingered here and there even as his brows creased and he tried to regain some sense of composure.

A sense that was already lost. This strange... being was already in his car and clearly wanted to be taken to his home. Arthur could have cursed him and demanded that he disappear. He could have screamed at him for even daring to show his face after his _kind_ had left him, abandoned him when he had needed them so desperately. He could have. Though Alfred appeared to be the type not to take 'no' for an answer just to tease him (and wasn't that just the nature of fairies?), and were he not so sure that he didn't plan to hurt him, he would have been rightly afraid.

But whatever his anxieties and sense of unbalance told him, Alfred seemed able to read him (which again, was not all that surprising, he supposed). His hand was suddenly clasped in a lose grip, and the blinding smile the other gave him softened and made something in his chest leap and flutter, and suddenly he felt six years old again, in his mother's garden, playing make believe and surrounded by all manner of fantastical, beautiful creatures that he longed to call his friends.

He wished it didn't make him want to cry, because Alfred could see that too.

"They've all missed you, you know. You've been alone a long time, haven't you, Arthur?" the man said, fingers warm and lingering over his.

"...get your feet off the dash," was all he finally managed to say as he put the car in drive, and Alfred laughed brightly again, settling back and staring at the road while Arthur questioned his life choices.

And, just a little, started to smile.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a short, drabble-ish thing. I love the idea of Alfred as one of Arthur's beloved magical creatures, so this thought occurred to me. I wanted to make it longer and perhaps have them go on all kinds of ridiculous adventures in the modern world or what have you... but then I realized how poorly I do with multi-chaptered stories, so... haha. Thanks for reading!
> 
> p.s. Title is taken from Patrick Wolf's "The Magic Position", which is the first song I ever associated with USUK/UKUS. Give it a listen, if you're curious, it's lovely.


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